We harvested our first home grown strawberry yesterday, Albie was very excited, however we only ever get one ripe strawberry at a time - two if we are very lucky! So I decided to take the children strawberry picking at the local fruit farm today, it turned out to be a lovely few hours outside, the children got to see actually where the strawberries are grown, they were reminded not to trample all over the plants, and how to spot nice, juicy and ripe strawberries ready for picking - and eating!
Before we had even glimpsed the fruit fields M fell over, literally face first into the biggest muddy puddle - is it wrong of me to admit that it was quite funny?! (disclaimer - no children were harmed during any of the strawberry farm activities!)
We all sampled a few of the strawberries while we were picking them - some ate much more than their fair share, but I won't tell!
When we got back home we made delicious smoothies using our hand picked and very fresh strawberries.
Planning according to the EYFS is not my strong point; I actually do lots of planning for the children in my care, I think about what we haven't tried before, activities we haven't done for a long time, activities to meet the children's current interests and their next steps, new places to visit, etc. I just don't document it too well! I never have, I intend to try, however lots of my plans remain within my head rather than on paper! I believe that this is to no detriment to the children whatsoever, as far as I can see it will only ever affect my Ofsted inspection grade, which I can live with!
Today I planned to do messy play with shaving foam - this is something we haven't done for a while, the children love it, I planned to incorporate mark making and concentrate on adding colours to the shaving foam and discuss the individual colours and the results once we mixed colours together. How clever of me to plan such a wonderful, enjoyable and educational activity all rolled into one!
The children however had other ideas!
Yes they jumped at the chance to play with the shaving foam, yes they did make marks (briefly) in the foam, and yes they (briefly) were interested in the colours we added.
However both Albie and J had the most fun of all smearing the foam all over themselves, the table, the walls, the floor, the windows, and me if I stood still for long enough! I provided a bowl of clean water for the children to wash their hands and a clean towel for them to dry themselves afterwards. The children used the water to stamp in! They then added water to the foam to make it watery, and they added foam to the water to make it bubbly! They then tipped the water out to stamp in it! Albie had the great idea to mop up the foamy puddles with the clean towel, then 'clean' anything remotely static in the garden with the wet towel!
Today's activity has reenforced to me that no matter how much I plan an activity, the children will always do what they want to do and will lead the activity their own way. Which also makes me wonder am I actually doing the wrong thing in not documenting all of my planning before we do the activity?
A wonderful time was had by all!
